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THEATER; 'Funny Girl' on Stage in Elmsford

BEFORE the overture's blare on the opening night of ''Funny Girl'' at the Westchester Broadway Theater here, the man at the next table leaned over and made a pronouncement: '' 'People.' That's the only good song in this show!''

Here is one listener who failed to agree. ''But what about 'The Music That Makes Me Dance?' '' the man was asked. ''That's the 11 o'clock number.''

By the time the orchestra segued into ''Don't Rain on My Parade,'' the man, the very model of a contented convert, said: ''Great score! Except that I always get this show mixed up with 'Gypsy.' ''

What?

''Gypsy,'' one of the enduringly great musicals, some say the greatest of them all, is by the same composer as ''Funny Girl,'' actually. And it happens to have the summit star turn in musicals, a role that has been successfully played by at least half a dozen leading ladies in major productions, not to mention Beth Fowler in Westchester's showplace for musicals, when it was called An Evening Dinner Theater.

''Funny Girl,'' which is emphatically not great, has a tough time being passably good, marking time from one very good song to another, none of them great. But it is hard to think of a more totally star-centered hit song and dance show, which makes ''Funny Girl'' the unluckiest popular musical in the world.

Even the overblown movie version made it clear that, though there was only one Fanny Brice, her name, in our time, is Barbra Streisand, who has owned the title role since the historic Broadway opening night on March 26, 1964. No one has since challenged that exclusive claim. No wonder ''Funny Girl'' is familiar but mostly undone.

For a newcomer, or for an old established theater, to take on that challenge amounts to an act of defiance, bravery or just plain chutzpah.

The score by Jule Styne, with Bob Merrill's lyrics, is exemplary, ranging from torchy to comedically, indigenously correct. ''His Love Makes Me Beautiful,'' ''Sadie, Sadie'' and ''Private Schwartz From Rockaway'' re-create just the inflected idiomatic taste of such fabulous Fanny Brice-associated creations as ''Oy, How I Hate That Fellow Nathan,'' ''Cooking Breakfast for the One I Love,'' ''Mrs. Cohen at the Beach'' and ''The Sheik of Avenue B.''

It takes more than a voice that trumpets -- Rachel Cohen as Fanny has such an instrument -- to impart the role's built-in Yiddishisms, poignance and elegance. Fanny Brice was a big mouth from the Lower East Side with Upper East Side class.

Ms. Cohen, who plays six shows a week -- Chris Jamison goes on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons -- transmits the defensive resilience for a turnaround in a reprise of ''Don't Rain on My Parade'' to a cheering audience, which may have thought they were hearing ''Rose's Turn.'' But her wisecracks are undifferentiated between vaudeville schtick and emotional cover-up. And her over-mugged delivery highlights Brice's misguided self-deprecatory jokes, which emerge as dated, dumb and, as proved, unwarranted.

Poking fun at the prominent nose and lack of allure of a third-grade dropout is, mercifully, a thing of the past. Not even a true-to-period show can flaunt that sort of embarrassingly retro and strictly American perception without making us wince, especially when Ms. Streisand forged on to glamour and seriousness of purpose without getting a nose job, thus giving the real life lie to an insensitive stereotype. Here, Fanny puts herself down physically, when she is not talking about how dumb she is.

Fanny Brice became rich and famous with no struggle (hardly), no self-esteem (well, very little) but nerve to spare, over-the-top talent and the inimitable aura of ''the greatest star.'' Isobel Lennart's by-the-numbers irrelevant book, which reduces a fabulous life to an uneventful one, might be worth retooling under the microscope of contemporary psychological sophistication. Her who-cares love story of a willful woman who is convinced that she is funny looking and is enslaved by her love for a seriously good-looking, very proud gambler turned embezzler, (Nick Arnstein) is filled with sudden, contrived, indeed preposterous, moments of unbelievable truth, which leap out of a motivationless void. Fanny's mother tells her off. Fanny blames herself for turning Nick into who he always was. And so on.

Directed and choreographed by Tom Polum, the Westchester production inserts one real Fanny Brice song (''I'd Rather Be Blue'') and an ineffectual roller-skating number, neither from the original show. Michael Licata is Nick, a luckless part, which no leading man has been able to remold from wood. No, this show is not ''Gypsy,'' but it is not really ''Funny Girl'' either.